Several senior members of the current government once went to the grammar schools that were shut by Crosland and his successors, such as Shirley Williams (a 1970s education secretary, now a Liberal Democrat peer).
Labour has enjoyed success here for 60 years and Austin Mitchell, Great Grimsby's sitting MP since the 1977 death of then Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland, currently has as healthy a majority as at any time in this seat's recent history.